Pharmacist training in suicide prevention

Abstract

Objective: Suicide in the United States is a major preventable public health problem. Pharmacists need to be educated on suicide prevention strategies so that they can increase their own awareness and identify patients at-risk. A training program for pharmacists was used to provide skills necessary to recognize a crisis and the warning signs of suicide. The program's effect on the participant's general perception, self-efficacy, and attitude towards suicide prevention was examined.

Setting: Various academic, health care, and professional meetings throughout San Diego County.

Practice innovation: First Question, Persuade, and Refer training program targeting pharmacists.

Evaluation: A self-administered presurvey, postsurvey and, Program Outcome Evaluation were given to participants of the suicide training program. Items included demographics, general perception, self-efficacy, and attitude toward suicide prevention. Descriptive statistics were used to describe participants' demographics. t tests were used to compare general perception, attitudes, and self-efficacy scores between pretest and post-program evaluation survey responses. Nonparametric Wilcoxon signed rank analyses for matched pairs were used to compare survey responses that asked about attitudes before and after trainings. Regression analyses were conducted to assess factors associated with general perception, self-efficacy, and attitudes.

Results: Participants were more likely to update knowledge after training and reported more confidence to make an intervention for a patient at risk for suicide.

Conclusion: Our findings suggest that a suicide prevention training program helped pharmacist respondents build confidence in several self-efficacy areas relating to detection of suicide signs, response to patients with suicidal thoughts, reassurance for patients, and provision of resources and referrals.